This is Eddie’s story.
How to sell a pool service business at the right time, to the right buyer, for the right price is the question Eduardo “Eddie” Treviño had been carrying for almost a year before he picked up the phone. When the right time came, he called CGK Business Sales. Eddie ran a combined route-and-retail pool service operation on the north side of San Antonio out of a Stone Oak warehouse and storefront, with three service trucks running 450 residential accounts and 30 commercial accounts (HOAs, apartment complexes, two boutique hotels) across the Stone Oak, Hollywood Park, Alamo Heights, and broader north-side residential pool corridor. The business did $3.8 million in annual revenue, roughly $850,000 in Seller’s Discretionary Earnings, and carried twelve W-2 employees: Eddie plus seven CPO-certified route technicians (two of them lead techs, Hector and Mario), two retail counter staff in the Stone Oak storefront, one in-store water-testing lab tech, and one shared bookkeeper. Approximately 65 percent of revenue ran through the recurring residential and commercial route book at over 88 percent monthly retention, with the remaining 35 percent through the retail storefront selling chemicals, equipment, parts, and the in-store water-testing service. The shop was a PHTA member and ran on Skimmer route software with QuickBooks tied into the retail point-of-sale. Eddie was 58. He had started the route in 1995 with one truck and a single tech background after a decade as a lead technician for a north-side competitor. His son Mateo worked as an oilfield engineer in Midland and had told him early he was not coming back to take over the route. His wife Yolanda finished a successful breast cancer treatment in late 2024, and the year-and-change since then had Eddie reframing his time horizon. He came to us in mid-2025 because he did not know who else to talk to about how to sell a pool service business at this size, with this commercial-account roster, with seven CPO-certified techs ready to stay through transition, and with the retail attachment driving a meaningfully higher gross-margin contribution than a route-only operator. This page is what happened next, and what could happen for you. Eddie is a composite, not a single real CGK seller, but the patterns and details are pulled from real pool service engagements.
The night before Eddie decided to sell a pool service business.
Most owners who decide to sell a pool service business have been carrying the question quietly for a year or more before they reach for the phone. Eddie was no different. He was 58. For thirty years he had been the licensed operator of record on every truck rolling out of his Stone Oak warehouse, the founder who personally signed both the warehouse lease (in 2003, when the route had grown out of his garage and needed real chemical storage) and the adjoining storefront lease (in 2011, when the retail attachment turned the operation into something more than a pure route business), the lead operator on every Skimmer route software rollout, the relationship lead on the two boutique hotel commercial contracts and the four largest HOA accounts, and the after-hours phone line for any board president whose pool turned green on a Friday afternoon in July. The business did $3.8 million in annual revenue across the route book and the retail storefront, roughly $850,000 in Seller’s Discretionary Earnings at the upper end of route-plus-retail pool service norms (driven by the retail attachment, the commercial-account roster, the seven CPO-certified technicians on the bench, and the over-88-percent monthly retention on the residential route), and twelve W-2 employees: Eddie plus seven CPO-certified route technicians (Hector Ramos, age 44, lead tech and de facto route operations manager, who had been with Eddie for sixteen years; Mario Sanchez, age 39, lead tech on the commercial book, ten years with Eddie; plus five additional route techs at varying tenure between two and seven years), two retail counter staff running the Stone Oak storefront, one in-store water-testing lab tech, and one shared bookkeeper. The business served roughly 450 residential accounts across Stone Oak, Hollywood Park, Alamo Heights, Shavano Park, and the broader north-side San Antonio residential pool corridor, plus 30 commercial accounts including a Stone Oak HOA portfolio of nine multi-pool communities, eleven apartment complex pool decks, two boutique hotels, six smaller condo associations, and two commercial swim-club facilities. The recurring residential and commercial route book ran at over 88 percent monthly retention, the in-store water-testing service ran roughly 1,200 tests per month at the Stone Oak counter, and the retail storefront carried chemicals, equipment, parts, and the water-testing lab as separate revenue lines feeding into a single consolidated P&L. The shop was a PHTA (Pool & Hot Tub Alliance, formerly APSP) member, the seven route techs were all CPO-certified through the PHTA, and the operation ran on Skimmer route software with the retail point-of-sale tied into QuickBooks for the bookkeeper.
Why owners decide to sell a pool service business
The Tuesday Eddie finally submitted the form, his wife Yolanda had been at his shoulder reading him the printed search results from her tablet. Yolanda was 56, a Tejana whose family had been in San Antonio for four generations, and she had finished a successful course of breast cancer treatment in late 2024. The year-and-change since the all-clear had been the longest Eddie and Yolanda had spent at home together since the route launched in 1995, and it had been the part of his life that he kept turning over in his mind on the drive between the warehouse and the Stone Oak storefront. Their son Mateo was 28, a Texas A&M petroleum engineering graduate, and worked as an oilfield engineer for an operator in Midland. Mateo had told Eddie clearly at the family Christmas in 2018 that he was not coming back to run the route, and Mateo had stayed clear about that every Christmas since. Eddie had heard him every time. Their daughter Lucia was 30 and a nurse in the Methodist Hospital system in San Antonio. Eddie was on the lay leadership at his San Antonio Catholic parish, and he wanted to spend the next chapter on the parish’s catechesis program and on Saturday mornings at the family ranch outside Pleasanton with Yolanda. Hector Ramos, the lead tech on the route, had been with Eddie for sixteen years and was committed to staying on post-close if the buyer ran the business in a way that kept the route bench together. Mario Sanchez, the lead tech on the commercial book, had been ten years and was the practical operator on the two boutique hotel contracts and the largest HOA accounts. Both Hector and Mario were ready to keep operating. Eddie had been approached eleven times in the prior eighteen months: five times by PE-backed pool service consolidators headquartered out of the Sun Belt, three times by regional independent pool service chains expanding into South Texas, twice by national franchise development reps for the franchise consolidator tier, and once by a former route tech who had left in 2017 and built a smaller operation in New Braunfels and now wanted to come back into the corridor through an SBA-financed acquisition. Eddie did not know what his business was actually worth at $3.8 million revenue and $850,000 SDE, with the route-and-retail combined model, the over-88-percent monthly retention, the seven CPO-certified techs, the commercial-account roster, the in-store water-testing lab, and the Stone Oak warehouse-and-storefront real estate footprint on a long-running lease. He did not know whether the firms calling him were the right buyers for Hector, Mario, the five additional route techs, the two retail counter staff, or the in-store water-testing tech. He did not know whether the retail attachment was a value driver, a complication, or a wash. He did not have a single peer in his life who had ever sold a pool service business at this size, with this retail attachment, with this commercial-account roster.
That is the night he found CGK and submitted the form. We called him back at 7:38 the next morning, while Eddie was at the Stone Oak warehouse loading chemical totes onto the Hector and Mario trucks for the morning route.
The first call about how to sell a pool service business.
The first call was 47 minutes. We did most of the listening.
Owners who think about how to sell a pool service business in their late fifties, like Eddie, usually carry the same handful of pressures into the first call. Eddie talked about Hector Ramos and the way Hector had been the practical operator on the residential route book since 2010 and the unofficial dispatcher on the morning truck loadout for almost as long. He talked about Mario Sanchez running the commercial book since 2016 and the way Mario was the one who had built the operating relationships with the two boutique hotel general managers and with the Stone Oak HOA portfolio’s property management firm. He talked about the five additional CPO-certified route techs. He talked about the two retail counter staff and the in-store water-testing lab tech, and the way the Stone Oak storefront had become a small community node where roughly 1,200 monthly water tests turned into roughly 1,200 monthly customer conversations about chemicals, equipment, and the general state of north-side residential pools. He talked about the route software (Skimmer) the operation had been on since 2018, the QuickBooks the bookkeeper kept the books in, the PHTA membership the shop had carried since the APSP-to-PHTA rebrand, the CPO certifications across all seven route techs, the Texas Department of Agriculture pesticide license that covered the chemical algae treatment, and the OSHA chemical-handling training documentation that lived in a binder on the warehouse wall. He talked about the lay leadership work at his San Antonio parish, the catechesis program he wanted to spend more weekend mornings on, and the family ranch outside Pleasanton where Yolanda had been spending more Saturdays during the recovery year. He talked about Yolanda and the breast cancer recovery and the year-and-change of slowed-down family time that had reframed his time horizon. He talked about his son Mateo in Midland and the way the succession question had been settled at Christmas in 2018 and confirmed every Christmas since. We asked about the operation the way you would ask if you were trying to understand it, not the way you would ask if you were trying to win the engagement. What we were listening for was not just the financials. We were listening for whether Eddie was actually ready to sell, what he was working toward, and whether his expectations on price were grounded in what the route-plus-retail pool service M&A market would actually support.
At the end of that call, we set up a working session: an in-person conversation where one of our Managing Directors would walk Eddie through our valuation model and tell him honestly what his pool service business was likely to command. We did not promise him a written report. Written valuations involve substantially more work, and we charge for those when a seller actually needs one for a partnership buyout, estate planning, or another documentary purpose. The walkthrough was free because Eddie was clearly thinking seriously about how to sell a pool service business, the way someone thinks about it before they actually do it. Whether that ends up being in a year, five years, or longer, we make the same call.
The valuation session was the following Wednesday at 6:30 a.m. at the Stone Oak warehouse, before Hector and Mario rolled out for the morning loadout and after Eddie had finished his daily chemical-inventory walk-through.
Eddie was not ready to sell a pool service business yet. He went home and waited five months.
The valuation session showed Eddie that his pool service business was worth meaningfully more than he had been hoping in some areas and meaningfully less in others, which is how these conversations usually go. The over-88-percent monthly retention on the residential and commercial route book, the route density (the average drive time per stop on the Stone Oak and Alamo Heights segments was tight enough to hit a sophisticated consolidator’s route-efficiency target), the seven CPO-certified route techs, the commercial-account roster across the HOA portfolio and the two boutique hotels, the retail attachment lifting blended gross margin meaningfully above a route-only operator, the in-store water-testing lab feeding monthly retail traffic, the Texas Department of Agriculture pesticide license covering the algae treatment service, the PHTA membership, the Skimmer route software data quality, and the thirty-year operating history under a single founder were all premium-multiple drivers a sophisticated PE-backed pool service consolidator would pay up for. Three issues, though, were dragging the number down. The first was the technician retention story. Eddie had verbal stay arrangements with Hector and Mario but nothing on paper, and a sophisticated buyer’s diligence team was going to underwrite the route-tech bench (especially the two lead techs and the five additional CPO-certified techs) as a transition-risk factor unless the operation went to market with formal multi-year retention agreements in place. The second was the commercial-account contract documentation. Most of the commercial accounts (especially the boutique hotels and the larger HOA portfolio sites) were running on year-to-year service agreements with no explicit change-of-control language, and the buyer’s diligence team would want to see those formalized so the recurring B2B revenue would not be exposed to a counterparty walk-away inside the first twelve months post-close. The third was the route-versus-retail financial breakout. The operation ran a single consolidated P&L through the bookkeeper, but a sophisticated pool service consolidator buyer would want route-side revenue, retail-side revenue, gross margin by segment, route-density and stop-count metrics by truck, and customer-retention breakouts by sub-segment so the underwriter could see the route economics independently of the retail attachment.
We told Eddie honestly: he could go to market now and accept the discount, or he could spend four to five months getting Hector, Mario, and the five additional route techs on documented multi-year retention agreements, formalizing change-of-control language on the boutique hotel contracts and the HOA portfolio service agreements (and the larger apartment complex contracts), and pulling the bookkeeper into route-versus-retail breakouts and per-truck route-density and customer-retention reporting for the trailing thirty-six months. We said the second path would likely command a meaningfully better number from a wider range of buyers, especially a top-tier PE-backed pool service consolidator running a long-hold thesis with central support and a satellite-brand preservation strategy. The realistic buyer pool for a $3.8 million revenue, $850,000 SDE pool service business with a route-and-retail model, an over-88-percent monthly retention book, a meaningful commercial-account roster, and a CPO-certified bench is wider than people think, but each band of buyer prices the same operation differently, and the cleaner the diligence file is the more buyers can compete. CGK is an active member of the International Business Brokers Association and the M&A Source, both of which give us deep visibility into the active pool service buyer landscape, and we follow the trade through the Independent Pool & Spa Service Association and PHTA standards.
This is the part most brokers skip. Most brokers would have signed Eddie that day, taken him to market, and made the commission whether or not the deal was the best one for him. We told him to wait, even though it meant we did not get paid for five months and might never get paid at all if he changed his mind.
Eddie went home and waited. He spent the next five months getting Hector and Mario on three-year retention agreements with formal stay arrangements, getting the five additional CPO-certified route techs on two-year retention agreements with comp-step protections, walking the boutique hotel general managers through renewal conversations that included explicit change-of-control transferability language, walking the Stone Oak HOA portfolio’s property management firm through the same conversation across nine multi-pool communities, walking the larger apartment complex property managers through similar updates on the eleven complex contracts, and pulling the bookkeeper into route-versus-retail revenue, gross margin, route-density per truck, and customer-retention breakouts by sub-segment for the trailing thirty-six months. He also tightened the chemical-handling and OSHA training documentation, refreshed the Texas Department of Agriculture pesticide license file, and put the EPA-registered algae treatment program documentation into a clean diligence binder. He read background material on pool service M&A through the PHTA and stayed close to the IPSSA resources while watching pool service consolidator acquisition announcements in the trade press. He called us back in late 2025 and said he was ready to sell a pool service business that was finally in the shape it needed to be in.
What we did when Eddie came back.
What it takes to sell a pool service business properly
When an owner is ready to sell a pool service business with CGK, the speed of the on-ramp surprises them. We took Eddie’s operation to market in just over six weeks once he got us his updated financials, the documented retention agreements with Hector, Mario, and the five additional CPO-certified route techs, the formalized change-of-control language on the boutique hotel contracts, the Stone Oak HOA portfolio service agreements, and the larger apartment complex contracts, the route-versus-retail revenue and gross margin breakouts, the per-truck route-density and customer-retention metrics for the trailing thirty-six months, the customer-cohort analysis on the 450 residential accounts and the 30 commercial accounts, the equipment-and-leasehold-improvements schedule across the three service trucks and the warehouse-and-storefront footprint, the Skimmer and QuickBooks subscription documentation, the PHTA membership and CPO certification roster across the seven route techs, the Texas Department of Agriculture pesticide license documentation, the OSHA chemical-handling training file, the lease terms on the Stone Oak warehouse-and-storefront, and the chemical inventory and equipment-room schedule. The blind teaser went out to thirty-two buyers we had pre-qualified, a tight funnel because the route-plus-retail pool service M&A buyer pool is structurally concentrated at this size band. Buyers fell across five buckets we routinely use to think about how to sell a pool service business: PE-backed pool service consolidators (active across Texas, Florida adjacent platforms operating outside FL, Arizona, the Carolinas, and a few national platforms, typically running long-hold theses with central wholesaler contracting and acquiring under original brand names with central support layered underneath), regional independent pool service chains (privately held, often family-owned, expanding their state or multi-state footprint through targeted acquisitions and typically operating acquired routes under their original brand names with central wholesaler contracting and IT support), national pool service franchise platforms (smaller band by deal volume but historically active on stronger-margin independents, typically rebranding under the franchise banner), vertically-integrated pool builders adding a service-and-retail arm to their construction operation, and individual operator-buyers running SBA-financed or seller-note-financed acquisitions (the most active buyer pool by count but the smallest by check size, typically focused on single-truck independents under $1.5 million revenue rather than three-truck route-plus-retail operations). Each bucket prices the same operation differently.
Twenty-three of the thirty-two buyers signed NDAs and received the full Confidential Information Memorandum. Thirteen submitted Indications of Interest after data-room review. Seven advanced to Letters of Intent. We narrowed to four for management presentations. Three re-submitted refined LOIs after the management meetings. Two went into a final-final negotiation cycle. One pulled out late in the cycle on a board approval timing question.
Eddie decided between two of the top LOIs. They were materially different. One was a slightly lower headline price from a regional independent pool service chain headquartered in Phoenix with about eighteen route locations across Arizona, Nevada, and West Texas, around $36 million in annual revenue, and a satellite-brand preservation strategy where each acquired route kept its existing brand. Under that LOI, the Stone Oak warehouse and storefront would keep their existing identity, the route bench would stay together, and Eddie would step back to a one-year transition consulting role at one day per week. The other was a higher headline price from a top-tier PE-backed pool service consolidator running roughly $1.1 billion in revenue across more than 220 route territories nationally (a Patriot Pool tier or America’s Swimming Pool Company tier of platform, fictionalized as “Patriot Aquatic Services” for this composite, with a long-hold thesis (the platform was in its second PE ownership cycle and had publicly disclosed an intent to hold for at least another five to seven years), and a satellite-brand preservation acquisition model where the consolidator routinely acquired regional route operations under their original brand names with central wholesaler contracting, central insurance and warranty contracting, central IT, and central marketing infrastructure layered underneath. Under that LOI, the Stone Oak warehouse and storefront would keep their existing identity, the twelve-person bench would stay at the operation, Hector Ramos would step into a South Texas regional operations role with the consolidator while keeping his Stone Oak route operations responsibilities through a phased eighteen-month transition, Mario Sanchez would continue running the commercial book with an expanded mandate that would route additional regional commercial accounts to his bay (including a small portfolio of San Antonio south-side HOAs the consolidator was already underwriting), the five additional CPO-certified technicians would continue under their existing comp structure, the two retail counter staff and the in-store water-testing lab tech would retain their roles and pay structure, the boutique hotel contracts and the Stone Oak HOA portfolio service agreements and the larger apartment complex contracts would transfer cleanly under the consolidator’s central B2B contracting umbrella with the counterparties having pre-signed change-of-control acknowledgements, the Skimmer route software would be retained for at least the first eighteen months before any consolidation onto the consolidator’s enterprise stack, and Eddie would step back to a two-year transition consulting role at one day per week with full freedom to spend the rest of his time on his parish catechesis program and the ranch outside Pleasanton. We walked Eddie through what each LOI would actually deliver under realistic and pessimistic scenarios, including what the cultural continuity would look like for Hector, Mario, the five additional route techs, the retail counter staff, and the in-store water-testing lab tech under each acquisition structure. The PE-backed consolidator deal was the better one for Eddie. The headline number was higher. The brand preservation kept the warehouse-and-storefront the storefront the customer households recognized. The South Texas regional operations runway gave Hector a path forward that none of the other LOIs offered. The retail attachment was treated as a regional asset rather than as a one-off curiosity.
Through the whole process, the same CGK Managing Director who had taken Eddie’s first call five months earlier was the person walking him through every conversation.
The deal Eddie took to sell a pool service business.
How the deal looks when you sell a pool service business with CGK
This is the part of how to sell a pool service business that gets the least attention in the trade press and the most attention from owners who have actually closed a transaction: the structure of the consideration package matters more than the headline number, and the structure for a route-plus-retail pool service operation with an over-88-percent monthly retention book, a CPO-certified bench, a meaningful commercial-account roster, and an in-store water-testing lab is a familiar pattern for a PE-backed pool service consolidator running a long-hold thesis with a satellite-brand preservation acquisition model. Eddie’s deal closed roughly six months after we restarted the engagement, the standard CGK pool service window. The buyer was a top-tier PE-backed pool service consolidator with roughly $1.1 billion in annual revenue across more than 220 route territories nationally pre-acquisition, in its second PE ownership cycle with a publicly disclosed long-hold thesis through at least the next five to seven years, with a satellite-brand preservation acquisition model that routinely acquired regional route operations under their original brand names with central wholesaler contracting, central insurance and warranty contracting, central IT, and central marketing infrastructure layered underneath. The acquisition structure was an asset purchase rather than a stock purchase: the route operation and the retail storefront folded into the consolidator at close while keeping their existing identity on the warehouse-and-storefront, the twelve-person bench stayed in place, Hector Ramos stepped into a South Texas regional operations role with the consolidator while keeping his Stone Oak responsibilities through a phased eighteen-month transition, Mario Sanchez continued running the commercial book with an expanded regional mandate, the five additional CPO-certified technicians continued under their existing comp structure, the two retail counter staff and the in-store water-testing lab tech retained their roles and pay structure, the commercial contracts transferred cleanly under the consolidator’s central B2B contracting umbrella, and Eddie transitioned to a two-year consulting role at one day per week.
The total deal economic value was approximately $4.7 million, roughly 5.5 times trailing SDE, a strong route-plus-retail pool service multiple driven by the over-88-percent monthly retention on the residential route book, the CPO-certified bench across all seven route techs, the commercial-account roster anchored by the two boutique hotel contracts and the Stone Oak HOA portfolio (each with formalized change-of-control language pre-signed), the in-store water-testing lab feeding monthly retail traffic, the retail attachment lifting blended gross margin meaningfully above a route-only comparable, the thirty-year operating history under a single founder, the route density across the Stone Oak and Alamo Heights segments, the Texas Department of Agriculture pesticide license and OSHA chemical-handling compliance file, and the structured succession story Eddie had built during the wait period with documented retention agreements on Hector, Mario, and the five additional CPO-certified techs. About 84 percent of it came as cash at closing. About 6 percent was held back in escrow for 12 months under a general indemnity covering chemical-handling and water-quality claims, a standard pool service escrow because chemical-handling and water-quality exposure is verified within the first warm-weather operating cycle. The remaining 10 percent was a rollover-as-equity stake into the consolidator’s holding company, with Eddie’s existing equity converting into the consolidator’s holding-company partnership interests on a vesting schedule tied to his continued two-year consulting involvement and the consolidator’s long-hold thesis runway. The numbers add up to one hundred. Wire hit on a Friday morning at 11:06 a.m. while Eddie was standing in the parking lot at the Pinch A Penny across the highway, where he had stopped to pick up a chlorine tablet bucket for a friend’s home pool on the way back from the closing meeting.
Eddie called Yolanda from the parking lot, in Spanish, the moment the wire-confirmation text came through: “Ya está hecho, mi amor.” It is done, my love. Yolanda did not say anything for a few seconds. Then she said: “Gracias a Dios, mijo.” Eddie drove the route trucks back to the Stone Oak warehouse one last time as the listed operator of record, and he walked the bay floor and pulled Hector and Mario aside to thank each of them in person before the consolidator’s regional operations representative arrived for the post-close handoff conversation.
Eddie stayed on as a transition consultant for the consolidator’s South Texas region for twenty-four months after closing, dropping to one day per week so he could personally walk the boutique hotel general managers and the Stone Oak HOA portfolio property management firm and the larger apartment complex property managers through the change-of-control handoff to the consolidator’s central B2B contracting team, accompany Hector on the consolidator’s South Texas regional operations meetings, accompany Mario on the consolidator’s commercial-account regional working group, walk the in-store water-testing lab tech through the consolidator’s national retail-and-water-testing rollout, and shape the consolidator’s San Antonio south-side and New Braunfels expansion strategy across the additional route territories the consolidator was already underwriting. After twenty-four months, Eddie stepped back to a quarterly clinical-advisor relationship that gave him room to spend the bulk of his weeks on his parish catechesis program and on Saturday mornings at the family ranch outside Pleasanton with Yolanda.
What happened to Eddie’s people and his customers.
The people-side of how to sell a pool service business usually weighs heavier on the founding operator than the financial-side, even when the financial-side is what triggers the call to a broker in the first place. Eddie cared most about Hector Ramos (the lead tech and route operations manager who had been with him for sixteen years), Mario Sanchez (the lead tech on the commercial book, ten years), the five additional CPO-certified route technicians, the two retail counter staff in the Stone Oak storefront, the in-store water-testing lab tech, the bookkeeper, and the active customer roster: about 450 residential accounts across Stone Oak, Hollywood Park, Alamo Heights, Shavano Park, and the broader north-side San Antonio corridor, plus 30 commercial accounts including a Stone Oak HOA portfolio of nine multi-pool communities, eleven apartment complex pool decks, two boutique hotels, six smaller condo associations, and two commercial swim-club facilities. The PE-backed pool service consolidator buyer was a top-tier platform running a satellite-brand preservation acquisition model that routinely acquired regional route operations under their original brand names rather than rebranding under a national identity on a tight ninety-day timeline. That made the people part substantially cleaner than it would have been under a national pool service franchise platform that wanted to absorb the warehouse and storefront into a single franchise banner.
The buyer kept all twelve W-2 employees, honored the existing pay structure across lead techs, route technicians, retail counter staff, and the in-store water-testing lab tech, and committed to keeping Hector Ramos running route operations at the Stone Oak warehouse while stepping into the consolidator’s South Texas regional operations role on an eighteen-month phased transition, Mario Sanchez running the commercial book with an expanded regional mandate that included a small portfolio of San Antonio south-side HOAs the consolidator was already underwriting, the five additional CPO-certified route technicians under their existing comp structure with the consolidator absorbing the CPO recertification cycle, the two retail counter staff in their existing roles, and the in-store water-testing lab tech in her existing role with the consolidator absorbing the lab-equipment service contracts. The retention work Eddie had done during the wait period (formalizing the three-year retention agreements with Hector and Mario and the two-year retention agreements with the five additional CPO-certified route techs) was preserved with formal employment agreements at or above the existing comp model. The boutique hotel contracts, the Stone Oak HOA portfolio service agreements, and the larger apartment complex contracts transferred cleanly under the consolidator’s central B2B contracting umbrella, with the counterparties having pre-signed change-of-control acknowledgements during the wait period. The Skimmer route software was retained for the operation through an eighteen-month integration window before any consolidation onto the consolidator’s enterprise stack. The Texas Department of Agriculture pesticide license transferred under the consolidator’s central licensing infrastructure. The PHTA membership stayed attached to the warehouse. The 4.8-star Google rating across the Stone Oak storefront and the route operation stayed firmly attached to the warehouse-and-storefront because the brand and the location and the people stayed in place.
Eddie was at the Stone Oak warehouse on a Friday morning when the wire confirmation came through. Pool service closings often happen at the end of the week to coincide with weekend route-volume cycles. He stepped out into the parking lot and called Yolanda in Spanish: “Ya está hecho, mi amor.” Yolanda answered after the second ring. She had been at the family ranch outside Pleasanton getting the kitchen set for Saturday’s breakfast with their daughter Lucia. She stayed quiet for a few seconds. Then she said: “Gracias a Dios, mijo.” Eddie drove back to the warehouse, pulled Hector and Mario aside near the chemical totes in the back bay, and thanked each of them in person before the consolidator’s regional operations representative arrived for the post-close handoff conversation. Hector did not say anything for a long moment. Then he put a hand on Eddie’s shoulder and walked back to the truck because the morning route was already loaded and the first stop was a Stone Oak HOA pool deck that needed an algae treatment before the temperature climbed.
What Eddie told us afterward.
Why owners who sell a pool service business with CGK keep coming back
Most owners who sell a pool service business do not call the broker again in the first year. The ones who do call usually want to talk about the parts of the engagement that, in retrospect, mattered more than they realized at the time. About eight months after closing, Eddie called the Managing Director who had run his engagement. He said two things that the Managing Director still tells new sellers about.
The first was about the five-month wait. He said: “Three of the buyers who had been calling me were ready to sign LOIs in thirty days, and two different consolidator scouts I talked to before you told me they could take me to market right then with the technician retention conversation still on a verbal handshake and the boutique hotel and HOA contracts still on their original year-to-year mechanics. The reason I sold with you is that you told me the truth about how my CPO-certified bench and my commercial-account roster and my retail attachment and my over-88-percent monthly retention were actually being valued by a sophisticated PE-backed consolidator underwriter, the truth about what the formal Hector and Mario retention agreements would buy me in LOI conversations five months later, and the truth about what the change-of-control language on the boutique hotel contracts and the HOA portfolio agreements would buy me in management presentations. You told me what would happen to the price if I went out without fixing those things. I would have left close to a million dollars on the table, and Hector and Mario would have folded into a worse comp tier under a different operator.”
The second was about who he sold to. He said: “I almost signed with the regional Phoenix chain because the conversation felt familiar and they told me they could close in sixty days. The fact that you walked me through what each buyer would actually do with Hector’s South Texas regional runway, with Mario’s commercial-account mandate, with the warehouse and storefront I had run for thirty years, and with the customer households I had built over thirty years, what each buyer’s brand-and-bench integration thesis would mean for the retail attachment three and five years out, and how a top-tier PE-backed consolidator with a satellite-brand preservation thesis and a long-hold runway was structurally different from a regional chain with a smaller central support stack, is a conversation I never even thought to have until you raised it. I sold to a buyer who is actually going to keep the Stone Oak warehouse-and-storefront the storefront my customers walk into and recognize, and who is going to give Hector a South Texas regional runway he could not have built on his own.”
This is what we mean when we say we sit with you in the decision, not just the transaction. Eddie is one composite story, but the pattern is real. The owners we work with who decide to sell a pool service business usually find their way to us through versions of Eddie’s situation, and the relationships start with a long listening session and a free walkthrough, not a pitch.
Ready to sell a pool service business? Where are you in Eddie’s story?
If you are starting to think about how to sell a pool service business, we should talk. There is no commitment and no pressure. The first conversation is free. The valuation walkthrough that follows is free when you are seriously thinking about selling, whether that is in a year, five years, or longer. We only charge for formal written valuations, and only when you actually need one for a partnership buyout, estate planning, or another documentary purpose. Submit the form and a senior CGK Managing Director will reach out within one business day.
If you are Eddie at month 1: just exploring
You are not sure if you want to sell a pool service business yet. The pool service M&A landscape keeps shifting (PE-backed consolidators, regional chains, national franchise platforms, vertically-integrated builders, individual operator-buyers), your lead tech retention conversations are still on verbal handshake terms, your commercial-account contracts are running on year-to-year mechanics with no change-of-control language, your retail attachment is still being treated by your bookkeeper as a single line item rather than as a strategic asset, thirty years of running the route is starting to tell you something, your kids are not coming back to the operation, you are curious about how a buyer would value your route-density story versus your commercial-account roster or your retail-attachment gross-margin lift, or maybe a PE-backed consolidator or a regional chain has been calling you. Most of our best engagements start here. Submit the form and we will schedule a working session. You walk away with a real number and a clear sense of what to do next, with no obligation to do anything.
If you are Eddie at month 5: ready to go
You have done the work to clean up the operation. The financials are tight. Your lead tech retention agreements are documented with multi-year stay arrangements. Your route tech comp protections are documented. Your commercial-account contracts are formalized with explicit change-of-control transferability language across boutique hotels, HOA portfolios, and apartment complexes. Your route-versus-retail revenue and gross-margin breakouts are pulled into a buyer-grade report for the trailing thirty-six months. Your per-truck route-density and customer-retention metrics are clean. Your Skimmer and QuickBooks subscription documentation is current. Your PHTA membership and CPO certification roster across the bench is current. Your Texas Department of Agriculture pesticide license and OSHA chemical-handling training file are current. Maybe a buyer is already in the conversation. You want to run a real process. Submit the form and we will be in touch within a business day to talk about timing, scope, and what your first 30 days as a CGK seller would look like.
If you are not sure where you are
Most owners are not sure. Submit the form and start with the conversation. We will figure out together where you are. We are equally happy to tell you to wait twelve months as we are to take you to market in six weeks.
Or call us directly at (888) 858-7191.
Start your own story
A senior CGK Managing Director will respond within one business day. Strictly confidential. For owners of privately-held pool service businesses doing $1.5M+ in annual revenue, including residential route-only operators, commercial-route operators, route-plus-retail combined operators, pool construction-anchored service arms, pool repair specialty shops, and equipment installation specialists. The first conversation and the valuation walkthrough that follows are free for any seller seriously thinking about selling, on any horizon.
Confidential. No obligation. Direct routing to a named CGK business broker, not a junior screener.
One of these eight people would lead your engagement.
When you decide to sell a pool service business with CGK, one named senior Managing Director stays with you from the first call through the wire transfer, just like Eddie’s Managing Director stayed with him for five months and then for the engagement that followed. Our Managing Directors come from Wall Street investment banks, hedge funds, Fortune 500 corporate finance, and operating-business leadership. Cornell MBA. U Chicago Booth MBA. CFA. CMT. Naval Academy. Goldman Sachs. Merrill Lynch. Deutsche Bank. AIG. T. Rowe Price.
What sellers say after they sell a pool service business (and other businesses) with CGK
I could not be happier with the experience I had selling my business with CGK. Greg did a detailed analysis of my business and helped me price and position it right for the market. After receiving multiple offers at full asking price, the rest of the process went very smoothly, and we closed in less than two months.
Hanna M.Selling my business was a once-in-a-lifetime experience, and I’m incredibly grateful to have had Wes by my side throughout the process. He brought perspective, pushed when necessary, and always had my best interests in mind. His experience and strategic approach allowed me to maximize the sale price while minimizing long-term risk and obligations.
Adam NevilleDerik located multiple interested strategic buyers that produced more than one serious offer. The negotiations were tough but Greg and Derik’s experience helped us overcome. We got a great result for our employees and for the owners. We would recommend them without reservation.
Bob TaylorWe sold a business that was 47 years old and being run by second generation within a year of working with Wes. CGK has a system that attracts serious prospects to review opportunities. Wes was able to make the overwhelming feeling of selling easy and to a certain extent enjoyable. I never felt alone or in the dark throughout the entire process.
Jennifer WilliamsWe decided to sell our company in 2025. Talked to another M&A company in the Houston area. We felt very comfortable with Greg and Matthew at CGK. Could not have made a better choice. From day 1 till final closing and even after 30+ days, they have been here helping us with documents and support during the transition.
Rickey ThomasInside the Blueprint, on Bloomberg TV and Fox Business News.
Eddie’s daughter Lucia, the Methodist Hospital nurse, was the one who first sent him a clip of CGK on Bloomberg. She had been watching the segment on her break Sunday morning and recognized the firm name from a route-plus-retail pool service trade article about how to sell a pool service business her father had left on the kitchen counter a few weeks earlier. She texted him the link with a note that read “Papá, mira esto. This looks like the right firm for the conversation you and Mom keep having.” CGK Business Sales is featured on Inside the Blueprint, the syndicated business television series. Our episode aired on Bloomberg TV and Fox Business News. Watch the segment, then start a confidential conversation.
The CGK office Eddie called was the CGK San Antonio office. Yours might be one of these.
When you sell a pool service business with CGK, whichever office you reach, you get the entire firm. Eddie worked with a CGK Managing Director based out of the firm’s San Antonio office, but his deal benefited from a buyer pool we sourced firm-wide, including the top-tier PE-backed pool service consolidator that ultimately won the engagement. Click any city to learn about our local presence and the named Managing Director leading that market.
Other Questions Eddie and Other Pool Service Sellers Ask Us
Practical answers to what comes up before, during, and after the kind of engagement Eddie went through, when you sell a pool service business with CGK.